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5 Projects ActiveSome History Commons contributors are taking some well-earned vacation time, but there’s plenty to peruse this week. Rye updates the Afghanistan conflict, Matt continues to profile the events during the 9/11 attacks, Blackmax adds material on US torture of prisoners and Sonia Sotomayor, and more. The Afghanistan and Prisoner Abuse projects promise to be particularly lively in the upcoming week.

War in AfghanistanOperation KhanjarRye gives us a trio of entries, two focusing on “Operation Khanjar” and a third detailing a dire warning issued by a former UN official. Read more.

Complete 9/11 ProjectDay of 9/11Matt continues to add vital information about the day of the attacks.Read more.

Prisoner Abuse and TortureJesuit warnings and SERE techniquesBlackmax provides over a dozen entries documenting a variety of events, from a 17th-century Jesuit warning of the falsity of confessions obtained through torture, to a Texas sheriff jailed for waterboarding prisoners, to more on the SERE program and its recreation as a template for torture.Read more.

Civil LibertiesSeizing power for the executive branchBlackmax documents three more incidents from the Bush administration’s attempt to wrest power for the executive branch.Read more.

Domestic PropagandaSotomayor and VNRsBlackmax adds several entries on Republicans backing away from criticizing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, and adds a series on the Bush administration’s use of VNRs as propaganda. Bet you’ve seen more than one….Read more.

The History Commons is now on Twitter! Keep up with the latest events by following historycommons, and don’t be shy about sending some tweets our way. Also, site administrator Blackmax is firing up some of his own social networking on behalf of the Commons. You can follow him on Twitter at max_hcommons, and on Newsvine at Max Black’s Newsvine page. Caveat: Nothing Blackmax posts or tweets is “official” History Commons commentary or recommendations. It’s just Max. Other contributors and admins who would like their social networking information to be available can e-mail or tweet Max to get listed here.

Thanks for reading. This week, it’s Independence Day in Peru, Vanuatu, Benin, and Niger; La Hae Hawai’i in the US; Emancipation Day in Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad & Tobago; and our Celtic friends celebrate Lughnasadh, or the Festival of Light. Let’s hope this week brings some light to all of us.

“Your timeline has been invaluable to me over the years. I’m certainly aware of — and flattered by — your citations from my book.” — Philip Shenon, former New York Times reporter and author of The Commission